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jfruh (300774) writes "If you're a Verizon broadband customer and you've tried streaming Netflix over the past few days, you might've seen a message telling you that the "Verizon network is crowded" and that your stream is being modified as a result. Verizon isn't taking this lying down, saying that there's no proof Verizon is responsible for Netflix's issues, and is threatening to sue over the warnings."

Since Netflix already paid off Comcast I'd wager they're willing to do the same for Verizon. However, Verizon is probably trying to bleed them for more than they're willing to pay. In other words, this is just their way of negotiating the contract down to a "reasonable" amount. (as if they should even have to make payoffs to the cable companies in the first place)

It is always a temptation [poetryloverspage.com] to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explainThat you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"

No, not for "better service", they paid for an interconnect. That's it. It means that instead of streaming traversing from Netflix -> 3rd party backbone provider -> Verizon, it now goes directly from Netflix -> Verizon. So Verizon is correct - they are providing a connection from Netflix at the data rate specified in the agreement. Those messages may be the interconnect is actually too small (because Netflix undersized it), or something between the user's device and Verizon's network. Sure, it could be a crowded Verizon network, but claiming it's THE cause is speculation, and claiming that there is something Verizon isn't providing is completely wrong.

Even their Verizon FIOS ranks at 50. How is it that 49 other big and small ISPs come in faster than Verizon's FIOS when most of them probably do not have peering agreements. Seriously, who in the heck is going to pay for Verizon FIOS when it can't even stream Netflix as fast as a small broadband company. Verizon can complain all it wants, but I suspect Netflix has da

It's a pretty good deal for someone who mostly uses redbox and occasionally wants to stream.It's $8 a month and gives you 4 rentals so comes out to $2-$3 per month for the streaming portion.It's a way for redbox to lock in some customers and a way for verizon to test out it's own streaming service.

Viable alternatives to Netflix or any other service routed over telecommunications? Yes. Viable alternatives to the telecommunications providers, whether they're treated as telecommunications providers or not? Very few if at all.

Verizon is playing favorites, Netflix is simply calling them out on it...how exactly is this a 'bad' attribute of Netflix? Hell Netflix has already paid Verizon for better access, and apparently Verizon still isn't providing it.

The problem is the way they do their accounting, people pay a monthly rate no matter what, and every bit they deliver is written down as an expense. Verizon doesn't feel they are obligated to actually provide the service their customers are paying for. I'm not even sure what they think their customers are paying for. They will readily admit that 30% of their peak traffic is Netflix, but somehow it never occurred to them that some customers might be paying them $120/month so they can have access to Netflix. Also, if Netflix can deliver this service $8/month (most of which is spent buying content), it's hard to believe Verizon can't keep up with them for 15 times that amount! In reality, there's a bunch of shady nonsense going on here.

If Verizon doesn't like government regulations, they probably shouldn't be such total assholes to their customers. You'd think that the geniuses running that company would have the foresight to realize their monopoly is only secure as long as their customers are happy, but instead they are pulling this crap.

If you prefer a free market solution, we could pass a law requiring ISPs to charge per GB delivered. Then they'd get the message that their customers are paying for data, not whatever the fuck Verizon thinks they're providing. But either way, Verizon is totally in the wrong here.

Um, isn't Netflix pretty specifically the only major provider that ISN'T owned/run by the Big X [wikipedia.org]? Which is why the ISPs who are owned by the same/similar people are trying to shut them down so hard?

They don't actually need to throttle anything. They just have to fail to build the infrastructure required to support the bandwidth needs of their customers from a Netflix source. Basically, as video streaming has increased, it's created bottlenecks in existing internet infrastructure. If they don't keep up with the new bandwidth demands, they can't deliver the content.

Video streaming providers like YouTube and Netflix have been colocating cache servers at ISP's for a while now. These cache servers are actually cheaper for everybody: they're cheaper for the ISP because they don't need to build out as much new upstream bandwidth to keep their service going. They're cheaper for the content provider because the content provider doesn't get as many hits on its datacenters. And everybody else in between has a less-congested network.

So really it's a matter of ISP's like Verizon and Comcast refusing to allow Netflix/YouTube to build cache servers at the ISP's sites, despite the clear benefits to everybody.

The irony here is that Version will claim no one is paying them to expand their capacity to deal with the Netflix traffic.

But then there customers should be able to ask and sue for an answer to the question: "If you don't have enough bandwidth to handle sending us data from Netflix, did you lie when you told us you were selling us X amount of bandwidth?"

did you lie when you told us you were selling us X amount of bandwidth?

Well, to be fair, that's not really the case. I did a quick check on their website to see whether or not they were making any solid promises on bandwidth, but they're not. You're paying for a traffic allowance per month. Their highest plan is 50GB per month, which translates to ~150kbps... Barely enough for a decent Pandora stream.

BUT, I do agree that this is scumbag marketing. I could not find any promises of speed other than their general terms "Best LTE, Best coverage". Kind of deceptive. Legal perhaps

Well Verizon FIOS is the only price competition competition to Cable Internet Access. Netflix streaming is the "Killer App" that makes people want to upgrade to a faster connection.Most people already have Cable based internet and Verizon wants to get people to switch to theirs.

Commercials involving slow Netflix (which that and YT are the biggest uses of bandwidth for most people) and placing blame squarely on Verizon or a Verizon lookalike is pretty persuasive when people are alreadying frustrated by their service.

I have Fios and I called about Netflix and Youtube issues. The customer service rep actually told me I should use Redbox Instant instead. I ended up saving the chat log because I was so incensed. I paid for the packets of data I request on the Internet. Verizon is trying to charge twice for those very same packets. The only reason I have Verizon is because it's one of two horrible choices I have for Internet access.

Further, I went ahead and flashed an old wireless access point to DD-WRT and set up an account with hidemyass.com (VPN provider) to see if that helped Netflix and Youtube. Sure enough, it did. Netflix was in HD every time after that and Youtube almost never had a hiccup or buffering issue in the middle of the video - as long as the traffic through the device was going to the VPN.

I think you need to learn how routing protocols work. I will give you a hint, unless they are using 20+ year old protocols like RIP v1, it isn't shortest path that defines your route. Their network should route around congestion automatically (the VPN proves there is a less congested route), and the fact that it does not means that they are overriding the default behavior to send Netflix/Youtube/Whatever traffic to specific choke points.

I think you need to learn how routing protocols work. I will give you a hint, unless they are using 20+ year old protocols like RIP v1

I don't think you have worked for a real provider for quite a few years. RIP v1 (which is way more than 20 years old) has been effectively dead for years. Every provider has used either OSPF or ISIS for years. A few smaller providers may still use EIGRP, a pretty good proprietary protocol developed by Cisco. This goes back to at least the beginning of the commercialization of the Internet in the late 90s.

But these shortest-path protocols are only used for "interior" routing. That is, within a single adminis

I am so sick of seeing this damn argument.. The bottom line is Verizon is slowing down and dropping packets that go to specific areas. It does not matter how they do it or what they are saying to justify it. It is intentional and they are lying when they're saying it's not. The fix, for a network provider, is simple and low cost - and it should be part of maintaining the network.

Verizon wants more money to fix their own network problems that they created intentionally because it allows them to extort money from their competition. Also, Verizon is lobbying to further legalize what they are doing since it is a fairly grey area right now. So.. they are both lobbying for the right to slow down competitor traffic and they are claiming that the existing slow-downs in competitor traffic are a 'technical issue' that is not their fault when they are in full control of the means to fix the technical issue.

But since the route still has to get through peering w/ Verizon, it lends some credence to the suggestion that Verizon is selectively oversubscribing the peering points. Normally, traversing a VPN would be expected to damage connectivity.

Verizon isn't lying in the same sense as a used car salesman isn't lying.

Not really. That tells you that all of the providers between Google and Netflix aren't congested. But the equation doesn't contain just two variables. In the case of Verizon specifically it contains three. Netflix hired Cogent to carry the content and Cogent peers with Verizon. Cogent underbid everyone else because they refuse to pay peering overages, which obviously something like Netflix would cause. Verizon is capping the connectivity between themselves and Cogent at the threshold ratio at which Cogent has been willing to pay.

This is not the first time that Cogent has been in this situation. Of the 13 examples of "de-peering" instances listed on Wikipedia Cogent is listed 6 times. Netflix went with the low bid fully knowing what they were getting into. Netflix could opt to pay for the ratio difference themselves, like they are with Comcast.

Now I am both a FiOS customer (not employee) and a Netflix customer. I tried, unsuccessfully, to watch several shows over the weekend. It does piss me off something fierce, but my anger is directed at both Netflix and Verizon as they both just bitch and moan rather than trying to solve the issue for their customers.

Netflix stated that they had to hire Cogent because Verizon refused to accept Netflix traffic from any other CDN. Netflix stated that they were willing to pay the higher price of Level 3, but Verizon wouldn't accept it.

Maybe Verizon knew that Cogent was bad and wanted to try to cause Netflix into a "guilt by association" situation. Or maybe Verizon finds it easier to flex against Cogent than Level 3, who is many times larger than Verizon when it comes to transit.

I live in a small city where the outskirts get high data rates, but those of us closer to the center get lousy service. Why? Old infrastructure. Verizon (now Fairpoint) refused to invest in it because they know the people living in this area have a choice between bad service from Comcast or bad service from Verizon/Fairpoint. Why bother upgrading it if the customers can't leave for something better? I bet this happens all across the US where there's older infrastructure and no effective competition. I

+1 Informative... too bad I have no mod points, but it's an incredibly interesting graph. As a Netflix/Comcast subscriber, with no viable alternative to high speed internet service, I've always argued against Netflix's caving into Comcast's extortion. Of course, the date is supplied by Netflix, but it echoes what we've experienced at home.... it used to work just fine, then suddenly it was terrible and we were always getting "rebuffering" messages, and often enough Netflix would just give up and not play.

What does it tell? It shows a simultaneous decline with numerous other providers during the timeframe when Netflix and Comcast were negotiation for direct transit rather than requiring transit through intermediaries like Cogent. Without knowing when the direct transit was initiated, it's hard to tell exactly what went on. Very likely it's was done shortly after the deal was concluded and if you will note that AT&T and Verizon, who were both declining, ceased declining at the same rate and also started i

Ok, so there are no rules in place that would make Comcast enforce net neutrality. But I don't understand, why wouldn't their customers have a good class-action case against them? I mean, I am paying a (decent in the case of Comcast customers) monthly service fee and I have a reasonable expectation of being able to access whatever I want at a reasonable speed. Why aren't Comcast/Verizon customers recruited for a good ol' class action, since they are essentially paying a monthly fee just to be added to the pool of Comcast/Verizon customers that those companies can "dangle" in front of the likes of Netflix in order to extract more fees. I am not in the US right now, but when I had a TWC (=another crap ISP) contract, it didn't say that TWC could decide what I could download at slow or fast speeds - is that no longer the case?

I'm really interested to see what evidence ends up being offered in this. Can Netflix prove that ISPs are at fault? Can Verizon prove that it's not their fault.

I find this part pretty interesting:

Citing the Internet Phenomena blog, Verizon said that instead of using its ability to connect directly to every broadband network in the country, Netflix has tried to cut costs by relying on a "panoply of content-distribution and other middle-man networks" to reach customers.

It seems like an awfully strange complaint. How is Netflix supposed to "connect directly", and are people not supposed to use content distribution networks? What's the argument exactly on Verizon's side. If Netflix is using a "panoply of content-distribution networks", I would think that'd imply that they sho

The evidence shouldn't be too hard to come by. For a while Youtube offered a page showing statistics for your ISP's streaming rate vs other ISPs in the same general area.

I was on FiOS at the time, and the streaming speed was pitiful (could barely stream 360p during peak hours on youtube), while the average in the area was significantly higher. Switched ISPs (yeah, I had a choice at the time), and sure enough, it was all better.

They did this because Google and VZN were butting heads over whose fault the slowdowns were in several areas around the country (my area, Northern VA, was one of them).

Google supplied pretty damning evidence that VZN had some faulty hardware or was throttling and causing the issues, but VZN was still trying to shift blame to Google. After enough complaints and people leaving FiOS, the problems magically went away.

I think what Verizon is saying is that instead of Netflix paying Verizon for a direct link between the Verizon (tier 1) network and the Netflix servers, Netflix is using a different Tier 1 provider which probably has a peering agreement with Verizon and therefore Verizon isn't making any money off the supply side, only the consumer side, which just isn't good enough for them.

It's more complicated than that. Netflix's speeds on Verizon, or any other carriers, network are determined by peering agreements. There are multiple "Tier1" providers out there... these are the networks that interconnect all the ISPs. Random example: Level3

So you could have a 10gig agreement with AT&T and a 5gig agreement with Level3 and be doing fine. 30% of all peak traffic comes from Netflix. But Netflix has their peering agreement with AT&T so you're all good. Then, suddenly, Netflix switches peering hosts and goes to Level3.

In most cases the content provider would inform you ahead of time. You make peering agreements in concert with each other. "We'll both sign a peering agreement with AT&T for a period of 2 years" The big change with Netflix is they do not make agreements like this. They switch peers without notice.

So when Netflix switches peers they leave the ISP with a 10gig trunk to AT&T that's now severely underutilized. The ISP is reluctant to sign with Level3 because who says Netflix wont just switch peers again? The Tier1 providers are aware of this situation and are using it to their advantage. Particularly Level3. We've no idea what's going on here, but I wouldn't be surprised if Netflix is just as much to blaim her as Verizon.

Netflix has no financial incentive to be friendly with the ISPs and that's what this whole "Fast lane" is about. I don't like the plan but the ISPs concerns aren't just made up. There is a real and legitimate problem with Netflix and it's not just some conspiracy to prevent people from watching movies.

So you could have a 10gig agreement with AT&T and a 5gig agreement with Level3 and be doing fine. 30% of all peak traffic comes from Netflix. But Netflix has their peering agreement with AT&T so you're all good. Then, suddenly, Netflix switches peering hosts and goes to Level3.

Level 3 has stated that this is common issue across the entire Internet, which is why Level 3 has an average peak port utilization of 37%. Level 3 has designed their network to handle large shifts. You can pay Level 3 to handle peering for you or you can do it yourself, but don't come crying when someone changes routes.

So you could have a 10gig agreement with AT&T and a 5gig agreement with Level3 and be doing fine. 30% of all peak traffic comes from Netflix. But Netflix has their peering agreement with AT&T so you're all good. Then, suddenly, Netflix switches peering hosts and goes to Level3.

Level 3 has stated that this is common issue across the entire Internet, which is why Level 3 has an average peak port utilization of 37%. Level 3 has designed their network to handle large shifts. You can pay Level 3 to handle peering for you or you can do it yourself, but don't come crying when someone changes routes.

It is a common problem. But it was something that wasn't really done until Netflix pioneered it. Traffic moves all over, but Netflix is 33% of traffic. That's not just traffic moving, that's re-engineering your entire network overnight. The ISPs were just switching peers and following Netflix for a while but their network utilization is just too large to ignore now. The ISPs should have seen this coming and approached the FCC to enshrine the "Gentlemans agreement" they'd always had with content providers in

If Verizon wanted to offer the best experience to their Netflix subscribing users they would allow Netflix to install a streaming server in their server farm. This would save Verizon money and prevent the throttling that happens at the peer junction.

To illustrate imagine 40% of Verizon ISP customers are streaming a movie from Netflix. Without the streaming server the entire 40% have to traverse the backbone which Verizon pays a tier A provider like Level 3 [level3.com] for. Now Verizon, like most USA ISPs oversells the capacity they can accommodate because they don't expect everybody to use their full bandwidth portion simultaneously so to save money they also under purchase back end peering connections so that 40% of traffic just slammed all the connection going from Verizon to their tier A provider slowing traffic for everyone trying to access a connection not on Verizon's network. If you add the streaming server inside Verizon's network that 40% of traffic never leaves Verizon's infrastructure thus negating the need to upgrade their back end connection to accommodate the load. Netflix simply sends any new content to the streaming server when it becomes available. Now this scenario SAVES Verizon/Comcast/etc. money but they insist Netflix pay for the privilege of putting the server inside their network. The only reason they would pass up the opportunity to save money is if they also had a streaming service that competes with Netflix which could potentially make them more than they would save. VOD (Video on Demand) and RedBox Instant are just such services. This is why ISPs should not be content providers.

I have both Verizon FIOS and Netflix. Here is what I, as a user/subscriber, expect. I pay Netflix to stream movies. I pay Verizon to provide me bandwidth and internet/web access. I don't pay either of them to throttle my connection or do what they want to quality. I pay for X amount, and expect to get it. If Verizon cannot hold up their end of the deal to provide me a pipe, then they aren't doing their job.

except DSL has always been a shitty techyou have to be within range of the CO, have newer wiring, and the farther out you go the slower the speedsthey will advertise a max speed like LTE, which you will never see because of old and crappy wiring and people "far away" from the CO because the wiring twists and turns underground

you have to be within range of the CO, have newer wiring, and the farther out you go the slower the speedsthey will advertise a max speed like LTE, which you will never see because of old and crappy wiring and people "far away" from the CO because the wiring twists and turns underground

While that's all true, it's also just the last mile, and it is easily and clearly testable**. This means you should be able to determine the speed of your connection from you to the CO (with the ISP's assistance), and it's not going to change based on congestion or time of day (though you could have a crappy copper line that is affected by water damage or other environmental factors... but not congestion).

What this means is that it's actually much more clear cut when there is an issue, as compared to something like cable (a shared medium). If your speeds over DSL vary depending on time of day (ex. congestion), then it's the network's fault, not your line, and it's most likely due to over subscribing the connection from the CO to ISP (after that, it's the same network that FiOS/etc uses).

** I have no idea if they actually disclose the line speed at signup, nor do I know if it's easy for a user to get a test scheduled, and I suspect it is an ugly mess of customer service reps to jump through, but it is technically very easy.

Except you don't have to be within range of the CO, but within range of the DSLAM. The DSLAMs are fiber fed and can be installed in un-airconditioned cabinets all over town.It costs a lot of money, but DSL does have the potential to be plenty fast. A big part of the problem is that the companies operating the DSL networks are old telephone companies that are already pretty debt laden and can't afford to spend billions on upgrades (they are already spending hundreds of millions per year on upgrades). They

I disagree, I do have FIOS, and I get shitty quality streaming for Netflix, HD streams keep buffering or falling back to SD quality.

When I change my fios gateway VPN connection to force all traffic over my VPS, suddenly everything works just peachy (except my xbox live since I do not run miniupnpd on my vpn gateway).

I have a perpetual VPN connection open, that only routes traffic to certain countries through my VPN, all other traffic defaults through my verizon connection (unless I change the config and disable split tunneling)

verizon and every other ISP will have multiple peering points with different network, with each one routing different kinds of traffic and having different rulesusing a VPN just means your return traffic is being routed over a peer that isn't congested because netflix sends all their data over the congested peer

I can completely confirm Netflix''s claims. In the last month streaming over FIOS has become unbearable. Last week I couldn't take it and ordered Optimum. Streaming is back to normal and even latency and bandwidth to other services has improved. If you can, dump this bloated monopoly known as Verizon. Why did we break up AT&T to just to create a new monopoly 30 years later?

YouTube performance over Verizon has been terrible for about a year now too. It's not a throughput problem, but the connection keeps stalling out at random intervals, requiring you to restart the video every minute or two.

Well this seems like a fine "solution" to companies that are trying to get rid of net neutrality.

What if every big content provider started popping up such messages? Let the user know directly that their content is being delivered slower because their net provider is throttling the data.

As long as the content provider can accurately determine this is happening, then what can anybody do to stop them from saying it? Verizon can huff and puff about it but if its provably true can they legally do anything to stop it?

Because they would never only pay the parent company's pet provider? Your effectively trying to reinvent aol/compuserve. Since the people do not have real options your stuck with whatever you choice of a handful of providers will offer you.

How is this different than the "use firefox" or "we recommend internet explorer" or "we recommend chrome"that many banks, websites, etc... have routinely shown. Many websites have gone so far as blocking youif you didn't have an "approved" browser. I see no reason why netflix can't do the same. They could evendo something like "because we have detected that you will get a subpar experience, we currently don't allowverizon customers to use our service".

Is buffer bloat -- the over-buffering many ISPs do in the hopes of giving better last-mile performance, but which actually breaks TCP's internal throttling mechanisms -- part of what is at fault, here?

Buffer bloat exasperates congestion by causing more extreme swings between over-saturated and under-saturated, but there shouldn't be congestion in the first place. Netflix is not attempting to send data at your full connection speed, except for the fraction of a second for initial buffering. Most of the time, they're only attempting to send 2mb/s

The solution is Netflix and everyone else needs to let you buffer based on your available bandwidth. If your connection is too slow to watch the HD movie you have paid for then it should pretty much download the whole thing and then let you watch it.

The whole concept of live streaming accross the internet has always been a stupid idea for pre-recorded non-live media consumption

The elephant in the room: Requiring streaming for every customer simultaneously with no option for offline playback is a broken model with respect to how the internet works.

Granted, since any customer can arbitrarily choose any item in the Netflix library for viewing, the capability for streaming in real-time needs to work decently well. In practice, however, only the things in "My List" are likely to be viewed by a given customer, so downloading to a local cache would allow playback at optimal quality without needing ideal network performance.

It seems to me the intense desire on the part of Netflix and the "rights holders" for full control, maximum monetization and the deep rooted fear that someone might figure out how to make a copy is the real reason this is even a problem.

I would have no problem with a Netflix client that incorporated some sort of DVR-like functionality so that items of interest could be added to a local queue (sorry - queue is a deprecated term - My Local List). That would be wonderful for situations where the available network is sketchy (eg. hotel, coffeeshop) or not present (airplane, campsite, beach, etc). Rampant sharing could be minimized by allowing only one (or a few) devices to have the locally cached content, and requiring a network connection to download or release a particular item. Or if that's too complicated, just allow a limited number of authorized devices per account that can cache the same content.

I think enough customers would take advantage of this to alleviate the problems caused by real-time streaming and take a lot of power away from the intermediaries.

I've heard mentioned that Netflix should adopt a P2P model using BitTorrent in order to circumvent ISP throttling. (Maybe I've got that wrong. I'm not terribly informed.)

But that got me thinking. Could we, and big providers in particular, sort of collectively force network neutrality on the ISPs by encrypting everything, so that it's impossible for the ISPs to know what the packets are, only that they're supposed to be delivered to such-and-such a place? Would that work? And what would it take to make it happen? Or is there a big reason why it can't be done that I don't know about?

$18k was middle class black in 1950, but once you adjust for inflation, that means in 2004, they should be making about $54k assuming a low 2% inflation,

Is your bias so thick that you didnt even bother to see if the number was already inflation adjusted?..or are you so uneducated that you think $18K was a middle class income in the 1950's? Which is it? Disingenuous bias or tragic ignorance?

The unadjusted figure for white males for the 1950's is $2,709

..but here you are, claiming that it was $18K before adjusting for inflation... disingenuous? ignorance? both?

There is a reason that "the right" is doing better financially, and its not because they are holding you down. You are holding yourself down by not giving a fuck about things like facts.

Do you actually own your home? How about your car? You and not the bank likely owned them in the 50's and that is with a single income family.You don't just have to factor for inflation, you also have to factor out manufacturing efficiency increases. A toaster today does not equate to the same value as a toaster in the 50's. A toaster in the 50's represents more labor and natural resources than a toaster today. A toaster today probably costs $10 but to buy something with an equivalent amount of resources as

You are still bitching about the wrong thing. You play with what ever terms make you feel good about hating people with more than you.

You throw aside the fact that the poor peoples lives are easier and better with statements about "improving manufacturing efficiencies". Like that means nothing.

You can not get it past your need to hate the rich that their investments into increasing their wealth are what made the "improving manufacturing efficiencies". Just because they got more out of it than the little

I'm pretty sure that the GP meant "own" as in "not have a mortgage" where I'm positive the 66% figure in 2000 includes many people with mortgages. I don't think you two are talking about quite the same thing.

It seems to me that the luxuries are cheaper, but the necessities are more expensive. My TV, computer, and other toys might be less, but my gas, groceries, medical care, and housing are going up like rockets.

They are being enslaved willingly. So I do not care for them at all. If people want to give up their freedoms so they can be lazy and feels safe then fine. I just want these lazy pussies to stop trying to give away my freedoms and responsibilities.

You can buy partial ownership, but you can't buy partial control. Groups of people can buy partial control, but it takes large groups, and they have to act through delegated representatives....who generally figure that anything that produces more money must be good. (There are specialized funds with different values, but few of them are available as, say, retirement investments.)

If you don't have control of 5% of the stock, you very rarely have ANY influence over policy. Occasionally a decision will be c

No...or yes. In corporate ownership control is vested in the wealthy (i.e., in the large investors). In a democracy theoretically all votes are equal, and each (represented) person gets only one vote.

The "or yes' is because the theory isn't well mapped to the implementation, and this is largely because of interference by corporations and other similar entities. (These days I think it's all corporations, but there used to be extremely wealthy people with similar power.) Note that in these cases the influ

Netflix offers caching but Comcast/Verizon demand they pay for it despite the money they would save by hosting the cache. They're more interested in poaching Netflix's customers for their own streaming alternatives. This is what happens when Net Neutrality is not mandated.

Some people have already asked Netflix what they mean and Netflix has stated that their own network and servers are not over-loaded, so the issue must be on the other side.

Here's an analogy for you. I'm wondering why my mail is getting lost or delayed. So I watch each step of the process between my business and the post office. I see that the mail is always getting to the post office on the same day, never delayed or lost. Then I find that my customers are getting mail late or lost.